CHAPTER SEVEN
The ME arrived from another county and used two EMT’s to load the body into a stretcher. They carried it down the trailhead, Brill and Jo in their wake, and loaded it on a gurney they slid into the back of a pickup truck.
“How long?” Brill overhead Jo ask the rotund man with thinning hair plastered to his pate with wax.
The ME took a bite of a snack cake, brushed the crumbs of his short sleeve shirt and missed the ones at the corner of his mouth.
“She’s pretty messed up,” the man made an excuse.
Brill couldn’t blame him. It was the truth.
The ME held the cake between his teeth and unzipped the body bag inside the back of his truck.
“Cause of death,” he said around a bite. “Exsanguination by the cut to her throat. Looks like a knife did it, but could be any sharp edged weapon. I say knife because of the way her skin is parted. Evidence of rape. Evidence of that assault being covered up with acid. Same for fingernails.”
He finished off his snack and dusted his hands before zipping her back up.
“It won’t take me long,” he told her.
“Because there won’t be much to work with. Someone killed her. I feel safe saying that without too much examination.”
Jo sighed.
“Jibes with what I thought,” she told him.
“Then why are you harassing me?” he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “You got a good head for this Jo. Stop second guessing yourself. The Sheriff’s got you turned around, and you know it.”
“Is he coming?” she bit the corner of her lip.
“Dinner,” said the ME.
“Politics.”
Brill watched the big man pat her again, and climb into his truck. Jo sighed, threw her shoulders back and turned to him.
“That your van?”
He nodded.
“Don’t leave.”
She made the rounds with the other campers. She knew most of them well enough to joke and smile, but a couple were somber.
Brill guessed they knew the victim.
He pulled out his chair, set it up, then hunted for a log to sit on when Jo came back.
It took less than a minute to get a small fire going, and he placed a pot of water with beans on one of the rocks next to the flame.
She came over twenty minutes later after she finished with the last camper.
Brill motioned to the chair and settled on the log before she could argue.
“Thought you might be hungry,” he said.
She stared at the pot with a dubious look.
“Just beans? What are you some kind of cowboy?”
“I was always partial to Roy Rogers.”
“Who?”
“Singing cowboy. White horse named Trigger.”
“Never heard of him.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I don’t kid about cowboys,” she said.
He tilted the pot and poured half the beans onto a metal plate, held it out to her with a spoon. She balanced the heat on her knee.
“Lean living,” she said as she waited for him to join her.
He ate from the pot, using the serving spoon as a ladle.
“Clint Eastwood,” she said as she blew the beans to cool them off. “And John Wayne.”
“Two good ones,” Brill agreed. “People usually pick one or the other.”
“That’s what my ex said,” she continued.
“Can’t be both.”
Brill nodded.
It was funny to him that folks debated the white hat versus black hats when most folks lived in a world of gray.
He didn’t consider himself a white hat.
But the men he hunted were bad guys, so he was a gray man.
He was okay with that.
“These taste different,” said Jo.
“Spice.”
“It’s good,” she said. “I wasn’t complaining. When a man makes me dinner, I try to be more appreciative.”
“Many men make you dinner?”
“Not ones who are on my suspect list,” she passed the empty plate to him and he set it on the log to clean later.
“Timing doesn’t work,” he told her and scraped the last of the beans into his spoon for a final bite. “Body was dead before I got her.”
She looked around.
“What?”
“Men who make me dinner usually offer a drink.”
He dipped into the back of the van and took out two cans of beer.
“Warm?” she asked when he passed it to her.
“Not complaining, right? Pretend we’re in Britain.”
“Not complaining,” she agreed and popped the top to take a sip.
“ME will back me on it,” he told her.
“You got a timeline of my arrival from Jester and more time with the two women. You can match that with my call to the operator.”
She nodded, and tried not to look impressed.
“It adds up,” she told him. “You’re still on my list.”
It made sense to him. He was still the new guy. She probably knew a lot of these campers, or were familiar with them at least.
He on the other hand was an unknown commodity.
“Staying here?” she used her head to indicate the van.
“Your subtle way of saying don’t leave town.”
Jo stood up.
“We’re not in a town,” she smiled. “Thanks for dinner.”
Brill watched her walk to her truck and climb in. She stared at him through the windshield for a few moments, but didn’t smile, didn’t wave.
She backed up in a tight K turn and didn’t speed up until she was on the road out of the clearing. He watched the pinpoints of her rear lights dim in the distance of the growing darkness.
Brill glanced across the clearing.
A group was gathered around another small fire, tiny flames casting garish shadows over the somber gathering.
He wanted to climb in the van.
Part of this life off grid was up with the sun, down at sunset. No electricity made it easy. A good book by firelight could pass some of the time, and he had a dozen paperbacks and candles in the van when needed.
He almost climbed in and shut the door.
But he had work to do. He wiped out the dishes with a rag and a little water and stored them away, then banked the fire and went to
introduce himself to his new neighbors.